News OF THE World

CANADA

Ontario school board officials said they “regret” burning books in the name of reconciliation with the nation’s indigenous people — a program overseen by a woman whose native heritage was later called into question, according to CTV News.

The school district, Conseil Scolaire Catholique, put texts with “outdated content and [that] carried negative stereotypes about First Nations,” such as “Tintin in America,” to the flame starting in 2019.

Organizer Suzy Kies, co-chair of the Liberal Party’s Indigenous Peoples’ Commission, turned out to have lied about her tribal status and resigned her position.

HONG KONG

A Tiananmen Square remembrance group in Hong Kong vanished from the Internet following a police order, according to the Hong Kong Free Press.

Officers of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China received letters Thursday demanding they remove all “online” information. Much of the material was not archived elsewhere.

INDIA

India administered 22 million COVID-19 vaccines Friday, a record that coincided with the birthday of the country’s nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, according to the Independent.

“I believe that today we will all make a new record of vaccination and give it as a gift to the prime minister,” federal health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.

NETHERLANDS

The world’s tallest nation is growing . . . shorter.

Dutchmen born in 2001 were one centimeter shorter on average than their 1980 compatriots.

Officials said the decrease was related to immigration from shorter population groups.

ITALY

A charitable British couple who raffled off two Italian dream homes in the past year — a $517,000 vacation home in Tuscany and a $250,000 fully furnished townhouse in Piazza Calabro — are auctioning off a villa in Garfagnana, Tuscany.

Jon and AnnMarie Nurse, who have used auctions to raise more than $100,000 for charity, plan to donate the proceeds to The Children’s Society. Paula Froelich and Conor Skelding, with Wires